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Ottawa businesswoman under U.S. investigation no longer chair of Ottawa Chamber of Commerce

Author of the article:

Vito Pilieci • Ottawa Citizen

Publishing date:

January 9, 2017 • 2 minute read

In September, the U.S. Treasury named Accu-Rate and its director, Marie Boivin as one of 12 individuals sanctioned for alleged ties to Vancouver's PacNet Group.Photo by Jana Chytilova/ Postmedia

The Ottawa businesswoman under investigation by the U.S. Treasury is no longer chair of the Ottawa Chamber of Commerce, according to a spokesman for the organization.

Kenny Leon, who handles communications on behalf of the chamber, confirmed to the Citizen on Monday that Marie Boivin was no longer acting as chair of the board. Leon would not say whether she had stepped down voluntarily or had been removed from the board due to the allegations she is facing in the U.S.

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Boivin is president and managing director at Accu-Rate Corporation, an Ottawa currency exchange business.

She is among 12 people named in a U.S. government investigation into “organized money laundering,” the results of which were announced last September.

The allegations span from a multi-pronged investigation led by the justice department into fraudulent mass mailings that have targeted millions of vulnerable U.S. citizens.

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“Every year, fraudulent mail schemes target millions of Americans with false promises of wealth and riches, swindling hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens,” said U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch in a statement from September. “Today’s actions send a clear message that the Department of Justice is determined to hold the perpetrators of these harmful schemes accountable.”

A report from the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) alleges 12 people — including Boivin — serve as executives or directors with companies linked to PacNet Services Ltd., a Vancouver third-party payment processor.

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It is alleged that in 2016 alone, PacNet processed payments for the perpetrators of more than 100 mail fraud campaigns, involving tens of millions of dollars.

According to the U.S. investigation, PacNet operates in Canada, Ireland and the United Kingdom, and has subsidiaries or affiliates in 15 other countries. The report alleges the organization is the third-party payment processor of choice in a wide range of mail fraud schemes.

It alleges Accu-Rate has been working with PacNet.

As a result of the allegations, all of Accu-Rate’s assets within the U.S. have been frozen by the government.

Last month, customers of Accu-Rate were told the business would close while it fights to clear its name and distance itself from the allegations. The Accu-Rate website also went offline, with its home page displaying a message that its offices would be closed “while we work through the process of having the company and its officer (Boivin) removed from the OFAC list.”

The Ottawa Chamber of Commerce has not commented on what will happen next or whether an interim chair has been named. The chamber is responsible for promoting the interests of small and medium Ottawa businesses to city council and helping to set policies that foster business development.